1. The assassination ofPavlos Fyssasby a squad of Golden Dawn Nazis has provoked a huge outcry amongst the Greek working class and youth. Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-oldprominent anti-fascist and rapper, was attacked and murdered on 18th September in Keratsini – a working class district of
Athens. Police officers, who were at the scene, decided to cynically watch the murder without intervening. Since then Greece has seen spontaneous mass demonstrations directed against the Neo-Nazi
party Golden Dawn.

2. The RCIT sends
its condolence to Pavlos Fyssas’ family and friends. Our deep solidarity is with them and all antifascists who march on the streets to smash the fascist scum. Likewise we send our condolence and
solidarity to the numerous migrants who have been attacked and murdered by the Golden Dawn killers in the last years.

3. The murder of
Pavlos Fyssas has provoked the biggest outcry and mobilization against the Neo-Nazis so far. This creates a real chance to finish off this massive and physical threat for the workers movement and
the migrants. This however will only be possible if the workers movement does not become deluded by the maneuvers of the ND-PASOK coalition government and the illusionary appeals from the
reformist leaderships of the workers movement to the capitalist state machinery. Nikos Dendias, minister for public order, has announced that the
government would table emergency legislation that would seek to outlaw Golden Dawn.

4. The RCIT warns
the workers vanguard not to support such a move which is – according to historical experience – nothing but a trap for the working class and left movement. An outlaw of the Nazi party would be
largely ineffective since the Nazis would regroup under a different banner. Let us not forget that Hitler’s NSDAP was outlawed too between 1923 and 1925. Equally the Nazi party in Austria was
banned for years in the 1930s. This however didn’t stop them functioning as an effective party and coming later to power. Why is a ban ineffective? This is because the fascists have tactical or
full support by important sectors of the state apparatus and the ruling class. Let us remember that at the last election in June 2012 half of the Greek police voted for Golden Dawn! It is widely
known that the police often collaborate with the Nazi thugs when they brutally attack migrants and antifascist activists. Finally, the state apparatus usually utilizes an increasing legislative
and executive power not so much to suppress the fascists but – under the pretext of fighting “extremism” – much more the militant organizations of the working class and oppressed. A legal ban of
the fascists inevitably leads to an increasing power for the state apparatus. The consequence will be a strengthened capitalist state machinery which we mainly be directed against the workers
movement, the left and migrants.

5. Instead of
looking for a state ban against Golden Dawn, the workers, youth and migrants movement must utilize the current popular outcry and mass mobilization to strengthen the antifascist struggle.
Militant workers should advance the antifascist struggle as well as call on and pressurize the bureaucratic-led reformist forces of SYRIZA, KKE and the trade union federationsGSEE and ADEDY to join and fully support the mobilizations.The most important tasks in this struggle are first to form immediately anti-fascist united front squads. Such anti-fascist united front
squads should defend the demonstrations, offices and meetings of parties and organizations of the working class and the oppressed. It should organize local patrols to keep the working class and
migrant districts free from the fascist scum. It should organize squads which undertake necessary actions to make it impossible for the Nazis to hold demonstrations and meetings as well as to
have public offices. Secondly the workers movement must continue its mass mobilizations against the Golden Dawn in order to close down all their party
headquarters and offices.

6. Furthermore the
antifascist struggle is insoluble connected with the struggle against racism. Hence the workers movement and the migrant organizations must not only
call for a struggle against the fascists but also for the equality for the 1.2 million migrants who are living in Greece and who are – in their vast majority – a nationally oppressed and
super-exploited sector of the working class and the poor. It must fight for full citizenship rights for – legal and illegal – migrants, against all
deportations and internment in camps, for equal pay, for the equality of the migrants’ languages in all public institutions and for open borders for migrants.

7. Finally it is
decisive to combine the present anti-fascist mobilization with the ongoing strike movement in the public sector against the austerity policy of the
ND-PASOK government and which is dictated by the imperialist EU troika. Such a combination of the anti-fascist and anti-austerity struggle would create a most powerful class struggle movement
which could smash the fascists, bring down the government and open a revolutionary situation in which the working class can fight for power.

8. Related to these
immediate tasks is the challenge to overcome the deep crisis of leadership of the Greek workers movement. Until today the working class mass organizations are dominated by the reformist
bureaucracies of SYRIZA, KKE and the trade unions. These bureaucrats do everything possible to hold back the struggle against the austerity government as well as the fascist threat. It is highly
urgent to build an authentic revolutionary party as part of a new Workers International (which in our opinion will be the Fifth Workers International) which can lead the working class and the
oppressed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and a socialist future. The RCIT is dedicated to this task and looks forward to collaborate with Greek revolutionaries towards this
goal.

International Secretariat of the RCIT

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Appendix

For further reading on the RCIT’s position on the class struggle in Greece we refer readers to various English-language statements and articles on the RCIT website: